


i insist somebody will die and i hate hoping

by yellowleader



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Not Really Character Death, Post The End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowleader/pseuds/yellowleader
Summary: After he killed Tord, Tom starts drunkenly dreaming his ghost. He's really sick of it.
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Tom/Tord (Eddsworld)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	i insist somebody will die and i hate hoping

It’s much easier to have no limits when you live alone, Tom discovers in his new apartment. No one’s there to care if you get sloppy drunk at seven in the morning, or if your sleep schedule just doesn’t exist, or how many days you don’t shower or the meals you skip. He manages to put himself together when he has to visit Matt and Edd, but that’s happening less and less. Matt never pulls himself away from the mirrors coating his room, and Edd’s work is picking up. So Tom gets left to his own devices.

Which is fine, it’s not like he needs anyone around, right? He doesn’t have to depend on the two of them for everything, or anything. He keeps his body in one piece alone better than he did in the house, what with the constant adventures, Ringo, and Tord’s mecha.

The mecha comes up in his thoughts a lot when he’s drunk, and he’s drunk most days. Did he find Tord’s lab? Of course. Almost as soon as he moved into Tord’s old room. He had to redecorate, of course, get rid of the last of Tord’s garbage that made the room still smell like him, so he absolutely found the secret lab. Dicked around. Went through his stuff. Dropped some gross purple vial on himself and had a few odd times where he blacked out after that.

But he never hit that button. He figured it was some sort of self-destruct thing- it makes sense, if Matt or Edd had been the one to find the room, they would hit it instantly, and then boom. No more lab. No more ‘old friends’ either, but Tord wasn’t around to care if anyone died. Not that he would have if he was there.

If he had, he could have fucked up Tord’s whole plot. No hat and he wouldn’t have had his smooth exit, or at least he would have floundered more in confusion. And Tom could have harpooned him! From right there, instead of having to shoot the damn robot-

That’s a part of the problem, he thinks. He didn’t get to see Tord die. He just heard the yelling and watched the robot explode in the distance. He didn’t even go to check on the remains, too full of adrenaline from finally, finally being free of his worst enemy, who kicked him out of his home and friend group. That’s probably why this is happening to him. The uncertainty of Tord’s death.

Why else would he be hallucinating his rival whenever he drinks too much?

He’s wasted on the couch when he hears the footsteps approach him. Tom throws a hand over his face, not wanting to see him. “Miss me yet, Jehovah?”

“Didn’t miss you,” Tom mutters. “Hit you right on, didn’t I?” He rolls over onto his stomach to bury his face in the arm of the couch. It hurts his nose a bit, but the irritant is dulled by all the alcohol in his system.

The couch groans as the specter leans on the side of it, too close to Tom’s head. “You’re being pathetic,” Tord tells him, and he huffs. It’s not like it’s something he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t need a vision of his dead enemy to tell him that. “Too drunk to lift your head and look at me?”

“Why’d I want to see your ugly face?” He doesn’t know if the Tord he sees is better or worse than if it was the regular one. This one has brutal burns covering half his face- a mark Tom left on him, he guesses. An empty eye socket, matching one of Tom’s own. The arm of his mecha, crudely attached to the shoulder. Expressions more honest and crueler than Tord ever really showed them.

“Because you love beating yourself up for what you did to me.” The mechanical hand rests on Tom’s head, making him shudder at the too-cold touch. “So look.” It pulls on his hair, not too hard, but it jerks his head up. And there he is. Same as ever.

Tom slowly shifts to sit up, trying not to puke, and Tord’s hand releases him. “Just as bad as I remember,” he rasps. “Can’t you just fuck off?”

“Oh, but that would be too easy on you, wouldn’t it?”

“Go choke on Satan’s cock, Commie.”

“Do you even believe in the devil, Jehovah?”

Tom props himself up against the back of the couch to keep from tipping. “I don’t believe in anything.”

“Not even me?” Tord’s sharp grin haunts him. It looks the same as ever, except for how the burned and scarred skin shifts to accommodate it.

“Especially not you.” Tom spots a bottle on the ground with still just a little bit of liquid in it, and leans down to grab it, though his head spins when he moves too fast. He finishes it off and tosses the bottle aside. There’s a recycling can by the couch for just this reason, but when he’s this far gone, he barely remembers it exists. The bottle misses completely, but luckily doesn’t break.

Tord chuckles and picks it up, looking it over. “Cheaper than you usually drink. Running out of money?”

“Just, just lowering my standards. You know ‘cause I’m talking to your fuckin’ ghost instead of doing anything else.”

“And what would you do with your valuable time? Get more drunk? Pass out?”

“Sounds like pretty good ideas.”

Another laugh from Tord. “You know, I always thought it was just a little too low to hurt you when you were piss drunk. Then again, shooting someone in the back is low, too, but that didn’t stop you.”

“Then fuckin’ hurt me.” Tom covers his eyes with his hand again, not wanting to look at him any longer. “Kill me. At least leave a mark or something, so I know I’m actually being haunted by your annoying-ass ghost instead of, of being a fuckin’… nutcase…” He’s so tired. He just wants this to be over.

“As if I would waste my afterlife on someone like you, Thomas.”

“You would. Just to make me miserable. That’s what everything’s about for you.”

The cold metal hand grips his wrist too tightly, pulling it away. Tord is right in front of him, face too close and a glare that makes Tom sick- if he wasn’t already. “You wish that everything I did was about you. But the fact is, you were inconsequential. If I came back and you weren’t there, everything would have played out exactly the same, except for my successful escape. Instead, you ruined everything.”

“…” Tom laughs, short and loud. “Good. ‘s just what I wanted. Making you miserable was my everything, anyway.” He lets his head droop, only getting a glimpse of Tord’s expression changing. He doesn’t want to see what it changes to. “Hated you. So much. I wanted to kick your ass. Wanted you to hate me as much as I hated you.”

“…that’s… pathetic, too,” Tord starts, sounding nearly unsure- rare from him, at least in Tom’s experience.

“Yeah,” Tom cuts him off. “Really was. It was like, like pulling pigtails, because you were… you were Edd’s best friend, and Matt’s good friend too, and then I was just kinda. Just kinda there. And you were my annoying roommate who watched weird anime porn and smoked gross smelling cigars. But they liked you.”

“Pulling pigtails?” Tord seems stuck on that.

“I didn’t know you. Except that you were annoying. So I wanted your attention, ‘cause then maybe I’d know why they liked you so fuckin’ much.” God, he wishes he had more to drink in arm’s reach. The rest is hidden away around the apartment, so he can’t find it until he’s sober again. “But you were just an asshole then, too.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever been this talkative in your life.”

“Don’t normally have a lot to say.” He sighs. “I wish I didn’t kill you. It’s fucked up that you went like that. I guess you’ll be… a martyr to your cause, or whatever. Whatever your cause was.” He never looked up any more of what Tord was doing when he was gone. What was the point?

“Mm. I suppose I am. But then you’d need to be worried about my followers killing you, wouldn’t you?”

“Only if I cared about being alive.”

Tord hums. “Do you have anything left here? Our old friends have drifted from you. No job. No ‘Susan’. Only enough alcohol to drink yourself into oblivion.”

“And cancer.”

“…what?”

Tom lets out a bitter laugh. “Eye cancer. A version of me from the future came back and mentioned it. Laser blasts aren’t great for your cells, I guess. I think I only had the goggle things that helped because of you, so now that I killed you, I’m just going to… die. If the drinking doesn’t get me first, anyway.”

There’s something so freeing in saying all this out loud, even if it’s just to his own drunken hallucination of his friend he murdered.

“I see.” Tord’s voice sounds distant. But maybe Tom is just finally, finally falling asleep. “Just wait, Thomas. Everything will be…”

He wakes up hours later, with a splitting headache he doesn’t think he’ll recover from. He’ll just find a new bottle and ease the pain that way. Tom lies on the couch for a while anyway, head buried in the cushions so the light doesn’t sear through his skull, and replays his fucked-up ghostly dream of the night. Another fun night being crazy. But hey, maybe now that he’s talked through his issues, he won’t imagine it again. Or at least less often.

When he manages to pull himself to his feet, he tries to walk towards the kitchen- to get water, or the bottle of Smirnoff under the sink, he doesn’t know- when he stumbles over the recycling can. He catches himself, but gags, the sudden movement making him nauseous. When the feeling finally passes, he glares down at the can, only to freeze.

Last night’s bottle is in it.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr at yellowleader


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